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Interview - James Wharton “It would be hard to think of a more reasonable Tory to take charge of the EU Referendum Bill” by Andrew Gimson A few months ago, an obscure Conservative backbencher learned that by pure chance, he had become a figure of national interest. James Wharton, MP for Stockton South and at the age of 29 the youngest Tory in the House of Commons, described how he heard the news: “It was a one-line whip, Thursday, I was just leaving my flat in London to go to my constituency and I was wearing casual clothes to travel and looking forward to getting back up north, and the phone rang and someone from the BBC just said: “Congratulations, Mr Wharton.” Of the 440 MPs who had entered the private members’ ballot, Mr Wharton had come first. He had won the right to introduce a piece of legislation, and had to decide very quickly what it was going to be. The widespread assumption was that he would seize the chance to introduce a Bill providing for the holding by 2017 of a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. This Bill is meant to persuade restive Tory Eurosceptics that they can believe David Cameron’s promise of a referendum. Mr Wharton quickly changed into a suit and returned to the Palace of Westminster: “I went over to the Whips’ Office and told them I was happy to do the Europe Bill. My phone was by now ringing off the hook: everybody was ringing me.   I just stopped answering it. The only person I contacted was Chris who worked in my office here and took on the role of organising media for the day, just going from camera to camera.   I did about 12 camera interviews answering almost exactly the same questions. It was manic, and didn’t stop until about 2.00pm, when David Beckham announced he was retiring. The only interview I did after that was for Look North (a regional television programme).” The fact that Beckham drove him off the news channels illustrates something Mr Wharton already knew, namely that for most people the European issue is not of consuming interest. As Mr Wharton observed during this interview: “I make no secret of the fact that I think the party needs to stop talking about things that 10 ConservativeHome Daily matter to politicians, but not so much to the electorate. Yes, we need to resolve the issue of Europe, it matters, is important, it matters to a significant proportion of people but there are also people out there to whom it does not matter and we need to be talking about things that engage them as well.   I think we need to focus relentlessly on the things that matter to the broadest base of my constituents – cost of living, jobs, the economy, and actually we’ve got a good message on a lot of those things. In the north-east, where salaries are lower than the national average, the lifting of the personal allowance and taking people out of income tax disproportionately benefits people in constituencies like mine.” If an in-out referendum were held today, how would he vote? Mr Wharton: “I would vote to leave today, but I don’t want a referendum today. It would be unfair on the British people to offer them a choice between the status quo and leaving when we have the opportunity to offer them something better. Now I don’t know what that something better will look like, but I think we should do everything we can to secure a better deal from Europe and then whatever that deal is put it to the people.” For a man of only 29 years of age, Mr Wharton is rather good at refusing to let himself be pushed around, and at declining to answer questions which he does not wish to answer.   A caricature of the Duke of Wellington hangs above his desk in his Commons office, so I asked: “Is Wellington one of your heroes?” Mr Wharton replied: “No, well I wouldn’t particularly say that.   It was a gift.” “OK, who are your heroes?” “I don’t know the answer to that question. I knew you were going to ask that and I don’t particularly think that I have heroes. I admire what people do, not necessarily who they are.” “So in that sense who do you admire in recent or indeed in distant history?” “I hate this sort of question. I don’t have a really good answer to it.” Just as I was preparing to abandon an unprofitable line of inquiry, Mr Wharton added: “If I could pick two people who are very different Conservative politicians, one was Harold Macmillan, who was one of my predecessors (as a Stockton MP). He never forgot Stockton, hence taking the title (Macmillan became Earl of Stockton). He used to continue to visit, he made a great Europe speech in Stockton which I think Michael Crick picked up on, a rather different view to the prevalent Euro-sceptic view in the party today.” “And, um, Margaret Thatcher, because coming from the north-east, and being a Conservative in the north-east, there’s an accepted myth that Margaret Thatcher was bad for the region, that the Conservatives didn’t do anything for us. If you actually come to my constituency and visit it, nearly all the successful developments and areas of development came through the Teesside Development Corporation which was set up by Margaret Thatcher. Yet when you come to the north-east there’s an erroneous perception that Margaret Thatcher wasn’t popular there. But she won more seats in 1987, her last election year, than David Cameron won in 2010, she got five and he got two and she won ten per cent more of the vote than he got. Yes, there were some very difficult things the Conservatives had to do to transition us from being dependent on a small number of very large employers and old industries. They put in huge amounts of investment to allow that transition to take place. You look at the current trends, they’re actually quite positive, and the areas where they’re happening are the areas she invested in.” Mr Wharton does not think Lady Thatcher’s reputation has improved in recent years: “One of the things about being a Conservative MP in the north-east, the only Tory in the village up there, surrounded by Labour MPs, it means whenever they want a Conservative voice, I do quite a lot of regional TV, so I was doing all of the regional “We need to resolve the issue of Europe” continues on page 11 . . .


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